


Ceci n'est pas une pipe

by NienteZero



Category: Leverage
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21753244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NienteZero/pseuds/NienteZero
Summary: Eliot Spencer's path was a crooked, winding one. But along the way back from the darkest places he went, who was there to show kindness and help him stumble toward the light?
Comments: 16
Kudos: 35
Collections: 2019 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange





	Ceci n'est pas une pipe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maddie_Meraki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maddie_Meraki/gifts).



The amount on the check was larger than any that Doc had seen in one place. It was an absurd sum, but it was definitely addressed to him, and it looked legitimate.

There was a letter with it.

_Maybe you don't remember me, but you were kind to me a long time ago. You wouldn't take any money from me then, but this money comes from doing good, I promise. That granddaughter of yours might be ready to pick a college, and if you want, this money could help her._

_You couldn't know what your kindness meant when you were giving it. But I was a long way down a bad road when I met you, and I don't forget the folks who helped me turn around. I get to spend my life helping people and taking care of my family, and I think you might know something about that kind of life._

_-Eliot Spencer_

Doc remembered the man who wrote the letter just fine. He'd never had a name for the man until now, but the day he'd met Eliot Spencer was one that had left him shaken for some time afterwards, and he'd always had questions and precious few answers.

Now he knew the name of the young man he'd helped. And more than that, he knew that the man had made his life into something good. Somehow Doc believed that the money wasn't dirty and that it was given in kindness for kindness. That didn't mean he wouldn't have a fight to get Millie to take charity from a stranger, but Doc was still older and wilier than her.

* * *

  
Doc was fond of Saturday afternoons. The clinic was closed, but he generally stayed to finish up paperwork for the week. His granddaughter Millie was visiting so her parents could have some alone-time, and she was chattering away while she worked on some coloring books. It was sharks and dinosaurs this time. She was a curious kid who loved anything about the natural world. Unless someone had an accident or emergency, Doc didn't anticipate doing too much work. It was a pleasant way to spend a late fall afternoon. 

Doc was closing in on retirement age, but this practice had been all his for the last twenty years, since old Doc Paterson wrapped things up. He still felt satisfaction in how he’d modernized things. No reason folks in a small town shouldn’t have decent medical care, and a bright, airy office to see the doctor in. He'd even replaced the grim and faded 1950s health awareness posters in the waiting room. Kids from the littlest babes in arms always seemed to get a kick from the Magrittes and Dalis hung about the place. Something to look at, anyway.

There was a pounding on the door. Doc looked up from his woolgathering. What now? Nothing too serious, he hoped. It wasn’t the time of year when folks were having nasty run-ins with harvesting equipment, that was one thing.

"Coming, coming," he shouted. He unlocked the clinic's front door and a young man pushed in past him and walked heavily through the waiting room straight into the office. Doc hurried after him, unhappy to have the stranger alone in the room with Millie.

The young man was lean and muscular. Too lean for his frame, like he hadn’t had time to sit a minute and let his adult body grow in. His hair was just longer than military regulation and his eyes were haunted, flicking between checking every aspect of his surroundings and settling into deep stare like he was trying to understand everything he’d seen in his life.  
  
“Run on out and go get your Uncle Rob, Millie,” Doc said quietly.

“No,” the man snarled. “No-one’s going anywhere.” He didn’t have to show a gun to be dangerous.

“Okay then,” Doc said, holding his hands in a placatory gesture, “just keep coloring, sweetie.”

Millie looked confused and a little shy of the angry man, but she went back to her triceratops.

"Why don't you have a seat and tell me what's troubling you, son." Doc said.

"Just need some stitches," the man said, "and I ain't your son."

"Okay, okay. No call to be rude. Sit right down and let me take a look."

The man sat down, his lean body all but collapsing into the chair. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled his left arm out of the sleeve, leaving the rest of the shirt on. He fumbled and undid a bandage that looked like it was just a strip of t-shirt tied around his arm.

There was a nasty red gash on his bicep. It looked like a knife slash. Clean edges, but pretty deep. Doc saw bullet wounds now and then - people did stupid things when they were drunk, and then there were hunting accidents, which sometimes came to the same thing. And of course all kinds of crush injuries from farm implements. But knife wounds, those came along less often. And he didn't think this one was from any innocent accident.

"Going to need to clean that up before I stitch it," Doc said. He wanted to ask questions, but the waves of tension rolling off the man didn't encourage curiosity. More than anything, he wanted the man out of there before he did anything to put Millie at risk.

"Fine," the man said through his teeth, "get it over with." 

He seemed to catch himself and a look of shame passed over his face almost too quickly for Doc to notice.

"I mean, please," he said, "get it over with please."

Doc pondered that bit of weirdness - the man might be dangerous but he was trying to mind his manners. He washed his hands and got out everything he needed to dress the wound.

"Now, I'm just going to give you a couple of injections," he said, "One's antibiotics and the other one's going to numb the area so this doesn't hurt too bad."

"No," the man said, starting forward in the chair, "no needles, no drugs. You think I'm stupid?" He looked around wildly, as if there might be a threat in any corner.

"Oh, you don't want to know the answer to that," Doc said dryly. "Okay, you're the patient, your choice. I bet you won't fill a prescription if I give you one, huh?"

The man looked defiant.

"I'll be fine, just need the stitches like I said."

"And I'm the doctor, and I say you need antibiotics. Tell you what, I've got a sample pack of oral antibiotics around here, won't be perfect, but better than your current plan."

"Thanks," the man muttered, shifting uneasily in his chair like he didn't know what to make of Doc's kindness.

"Since you won't let me numb the area, this is going to hurt."

"S'fine," the man mumbled.

Up close, he didn't look as young as Doc thought before. The leanness to him was more like a starved dog, and there were fine lines at the corners of his eyes - not from laughter, but the sort you got from squinting down the sights of a rifle.

"This is pretty fresh. Is there someone right behind you going to come in here and make trouble?" Doc asked as he cleaned the wound.

"Should have lost them," the man said, "wouldn't have bothered to stop if they were still right on me."

"Okay then," Doc said, "let's get this done and get you out of here. Millie and I have an afternoon planned together, don't want to disappoint my little darlin'. She's a bright one, can't get enough of books about science. We're neck deep in dinosaurs right now."

Doc spoke in a calm, warm tone while he started stitching the edges of the wound together.

"Stop," the man spat, "I know what you're trying to do,"

"I’m doing what any educated man would do. I’m trying to make you see us as people. I’m trying to make it so you won’t hurt Millie or me. But you should know, there’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do to protect that kid.”

"I wouldn't-" an anguished look crossed the stranger's face. He paused for a long time stuck in a thought or memory of a deep grief before he said, "I promise, I won't hurt her. Either of you. Wouldn't have come in if I thought you'd get hurt."

Doc shook his head lightly. He'd seen that look in the mirror many nights, stuck back in a time when he was dropping bombs for Uncle Sam over a country that wasn't even at war with America. Whatever this man had in his past was ugly, that was for damn sure.

He wrapped clean gauze around the wound. The man looked paler than before, and deeply tired, but at least he wasn't going to bleed out or get an infection deep in the tissue of his arm.

"You're all done," Doc said.

He stepped away to wash his hands.

"This is where a good ol' country doctor would offer you a hot meal and a roof for the night, but I want whatever trouble you're in away from my town. I'm going to get you those antibiotics, then I'm going to give you the keys to my car and you can get on the road."

The man looked up in surprise.

"You don't have to..." he said, then he paused, "if I take the car, you gonna call the cops on me as soon as I leave?"

"No. I'll give you twelve hours to drive before I report it stolen if you promise to go the speed limit and get some rest as soon as you can. I don't want you endangering anyone, but I want you gone, and I'd prefer you didn't feel like you had to tie me up or worse so I don't call for help. That'd scare Millie and you don't want that, do you? You take the car, we'll shake on it like men."

The stranger looked at Doc, trying to read his face and make a judgement.

He held his right hand out to shake. Doc shook it.

The man stood up and picked up his jacket, pulling a wad of cash from it.

"No sir," Doc said, "I don't know where that's from but I don't want your dirty money. Just call this an act of mercy and be on your way."

The stranger's face twisted. He looked like an ashamed child, the way his mouth and eyes drooped. Good, shame'd set a man on the right track.

"Thank you," he said, "I won't forget. And I'll take care of the car."

* * *

The car had turned up in perfect condition, twelve hours drive away. And that'd been the last Doc had heard of the man for all these years. And now he still didn't know that much but he had a feeling he'd done something right that day. Shame if a doctor following the hippocratic oath was noteworthy enough to be remembered as a kindness by this Eliot Spencer, but there was a grace to it too. It made Doc wonder what other little acts of kindness or unkindness he'd done that shaped folk's lives in ways he didn't know.  


**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt: "A defining moment from a character’s past, something that shows how they became who they are today."
> 
> I'm always fascinated with chasing through Eliot's past and the choices he made, and I was also inspired by the Rashomon job to wonder if there was a particular good old country doctor Eliot was basing his performance on.


End file.
